Neighbors
by Ginger327
Summary: It's pranking time! Ray moves into Stella's neighborhood, with the only goal of tormenting Stella! A prank war is about to begin...Please Review!
1. Chapter 1

**AN: helloooooo! Its good to be back on fanfiction! Lets just say I haven't been on because I've been lacking inspiration. But I'm back! I'd just like to thank all of my followers and everyone that favorited my story Slowly Understanding. I owe them something, so hopefully this will make y'all happy. :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Lemonade Mouth, otherwise I wouldn't be writing here.**

STELLA

Stella came out of the bus, walking to her house that was a couple of streets away. It was her fifth week of school, and she already had a band, along with five best friends. It was the best feeling in the world. She smiled to herself, watching the teenagers around her scatter to their own houses.

She came up to her house and realized she had forgotten her key. There was a "Crap." and a loud sigh and she sat down on her driveway. Her mom wouldn't be coming home with her brothers for another hour, and her dad was going to be at work until late. She got out her phone, that had recently been ungrounded from her, and called Olivia, who was still at school, doing something Stella didn't know what.

_Ring!...Ring!...Ring!_

"Stella! You can't call me right now I'm at school, I could get in trouble!" Olivia half-whispered in the phone.

"I know, I'm sorry, it's just-,"

"I can't talk Stella!" _Click!_

She knew Mo was at violin practice, Wen was in detention, Charlie was at school making up a test and Scott's phone was broken. She had memorized each of her bandmate's schedules, because she was in charge of making gigs for them. Her thoughts were inturrepted by...someone yelling at her?

"Aww! Did poor Yamada get kicked out of her own house?!" said an unfortunately familiar looking teenage boy, who just so happened to be named Ray Beech.

"Shut up Ray!"

"Uh, why should I?"

Stella knew this argument was incredibly stupid, but she had to be like this. "What about you, huh? Are you _stalking_ me?"

"Hah! Yeah, uh no. Actually I sort of live here now. Just moved yesterday."

He pointed to the house across the street. "So I guess we're neighbors now." He said this with an evil grin that made Stella try not to kill him.

How did she miss this?! And why did he move here, of all places! She saw the moving truck a few days ago, but she never took the time to see who it was!

"RAY BEECH! WHY!? WHY HERE!?"

This seemed to make him happy because he continued his evil grin and started to run over to her. "I live to torture you, idiot." he said.

Crap. This was _not _how Stella planned to spend the rest of the hour.

And there she sat, on her driveway, looking up at the standing Ray Beech, taking turns making rude comments, and talking for the rest of the hour, not even noticing her mom come home.

**AN: Sorry, this chapter is HORRIBLE and not really necessary, but I promise it's going somewhere. :) Review!**


	2. Chapter Two: Let the Pranking Begin

**AN: Hey y'all! I know it's only been one day, but I had an idea, so I'm gonna test it out. Please review!**

RAY

Ray grabbbed the key from under the brown _Welcome_ mat that Stella had put there after she forgot the key yesterday, and unlocked the door. The house smelled of clean laundry, and there was a faint smell of chocolate cake somewhere. He went quietly into the kitchen and saw the cake. "Bingo!" he whispered. Ray assumed that Stella's room was upstairs, so following his instinct, he went upstairs and looked around.

There were three rooms. One was painted white with what he could see a...mechanical toy airplane in progress? That must have been her brothers' room. Next door to it was a bland room with a brown dresser, a big bed in the middle, two yellow nightstands with matching lamps, a closet, and a window. **AN:Does this room sound familiar to you? Hint: It was in one of my other stories. **He assumed this was the guest room. He walked towards the right and saw the bathroom, and a room with a white dresser, two windows, a bed with purple sheets and a blue comforter, and her black and white guitar, standing proudly by her bean bag chair. He noticed lots of posters for her band and pictures of her and her friends. He looked at them in disgust.

He went up to her guitar and grabbed it. This was going to be fun...

STELLA

Stella got home and ran straight to her room. She immediately turned towards her guitar, but noticed right away it was not there. Her mind raced and the thoughts in her head started to turn. Where could it be? She instantly knew where to look.

She ran to the twins' room, yelling on the way, "ANDREW! TIMOTHY! YOU ARE IN SO MUCH TROUBLE!"

She knew noone was home, but she had to yell anyway. She searched their room, but no guitar was in sight. This puzzled her, but infuriated her even more. She _couldn't_ lose her guitar. It was the only thing she was good at, and it was the only thing that made her look like she belonged in her family.

Family...she knew her brothers didn't take her guitar, but maybe her parents did! Of course! Her parents were getting back at her for losing the house key, so they stole their guitar and put it in their room! Yeah, well she was smarter than them. Ha!

She ran downstairs, into her parent's room only to find...nothing. She started to worry after this point, so she went outside. And of course, Ray was out, as usual. Seriously was he ever inside?

"Hey Yamada! Ask your mom if you could get a haircut yet?!"

Although this was incredibly annoying, and hurtful, Stella was too busy to care. "Shut up Ray. I'm trying to find my guitar."

"...And you thought it would be out here because?..."

Stella clenched her fists. "I was going to ask you if you knew where it was. And you stole our chocolate cake!"

"Um...yeah, good luck seeing it again," Ray smirked. "As for the guitar...it's probably somewhere high up."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Ray looked up at Stella's roof. She turned around. "Ray! ARE YOU SERIOUS!?"

He laughed and nodded.

"Get it down right now! Come on!" she said.

"No way! This is your problem."

She sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine."

A few minutes later...

Stella was now on top of her roof, holding her guitar. She was wondering how she was going to get down without destroying her guitar. Finally, she said, "Ray! How did you do this!?"

Ray laughed and said, "Let's face it! I'm smarter than you!"

This made Stella mad, it made her want to punch Ray in the face...but she couldn't. But all of the sudden, her anger gave her energy, and she quickly set down the guitar, climbed onto the tree branch that was in front of it, jumped off the tree, and was just in time to catch her guitar that had been slipping from the roof. Ray watched with his mouth open. "Who's smarter again?" she said, walking away.

"Oh and by the way! I got to the roof so easily because of the window from upstairs! I kinda figured you would notice, but you didn't! Ha!" Ray called after her.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: Hello all! I am _always_ looking forward to writing this story, because it gets me on the hunt for good pranks. This one however, is an old trick that I had remembered just now. Hope you like it and please review!**

STELLA

She watched Ray as he pulled up in his driveway, with his prized possession- a black, Ford pickup truck. There wasn't a scratch on it, and it was so shiny Stella could've sworn he washed it with tons of water everyday. This gave her an idea.

She saw Ray get out of his truck, and glanced behind at Stella's house hopefully, which made Stella have a suspicious thought in the back of her head.

He jumped because he didn't see her when she she said, "Hey Ray! I still haven't got back at you for putting my guitar on the roof!"

His eyes got wide for a second before he made them look normal and he said, "I'm taking it that that's a bad thing!?"

She pretended to consider her answer. "All I'm saying is you watch your back."

She thought she could see Ray fidget with his car keys, and gulp. This made it really hard to hold back a laugh.

"See ya around Ray..." She waved and slowly went back inside of her house, revenge lying smack in the middle of her thoughts. A mischeivious grin sat on her face as Ray Beech stared wide-eyed at the back of her head.

LATER THAT EVENING...

Stella was wearing all black, jogging across the street. Maybe she wore it to help camoflauge herself in the night, or maybe she wore it because it looked cool. It just seemed like a good idea. But now she was starting to regret the ski mask, because it was really uncomfortable.

She snuck to the side of his house and opened the gated fence. She had no idea which window lead to his room, but she was going to have to guess.

Stella held a plastic container, containing a dead fish in one hand, and a flashlight in the other. Above her (she was now in the Beech household backyard) a light flickered on. She ran to the end of the yard, hoping to get a better look at the room with the light, although she stayed low so nobody could see her.

The light was shining on a figure who happened to be sitting by the window. The figure was a girl. A little girl. Probably five or six years old. She had blonde hair, and blue, blue eyes. She seemed to be talking to someone, but then she moved.

Stella stood on her tippy toes to see the scene. She watched as the little girl went to her bed, and she saw Ray appear and give her a hug and turned off the light. The hug she had just witnessed made her heart melt, but then remembered what she was doing and saw a light come on in the window next to the girl's. She saw Ray in a red t-shirt and pajama bottoms as he sat on his bed that was facing the oppsite direction as the window.

What was Stella to do now? Maybe she could climb up to the roof and somehow manage to get into his room and hide the fish? Or maybe there was a simpler solution... An imaginary lightbulb turned on in her head as she though about the scene with Ray a few hours ago. Of course!

She ran to the front of the house and to Ray's car. She hadn't thought about it before, but it really suited Ray. She tried to open the door, but it was locked. Of course. But hope filled her as she saw a window cracked open. It probably had something to do with the temperature outside, because it was really hot outside. She smiled real big and ran to the other side of the car. She stuck her hand inside and reached the lock, which she pulled up.

_Click!_ "Yes!" she said. She opened the door and searched the car. There had to be a place in the car which he didn't use. A compartment would do.

And there it was. A rug the same color as the carpet in his truck. She moved it aside and saw a handle, which she pulled. The compartment opened and saw that it was empty. Even better.

She stuck the dead fish in the compartment, closed it, moved the rug exactly in its place and closed the door of the truck. Hopefully, Ray wouldn't find the fish.

She stuck her hand back in the cracked window, pushed the lock down (she had to pay attention to the details, because Ray would notice these things) and ran to her house, unnoticed. Her plan had worked, now she just needed to see his reaction...

THE NEXT DAY, DURING SCHOOL(noone's point of view)

During the day, the fish was exposed to heat and convection. The heat got to it, and traveled the air around it to the car. That means it got really smelly, really fast. And oh, was Ray up for a treat after school.

**OLIVIA**

I was about ready to get on my bike and ride home when I heard a screaming noise. I could hear it coming from the parking lot, so like many others, I gathered to see what was going on. "EWWW! OH GOSH! WHAT THE HELL!?" was all I could hear. There was a faint smell of fish as well.

I heard a hysterically loud laughter coming from behind me. It was Stella. I had heard complaints from Stella saying that Ray had moved to her neighborhood, so I figured this must have been one of her practical jokes. I scrunched up my face in confusion as Ray started laughing as well. Wasn't Ray mad at her?

Stella stopped her laughing immediately, and I could see her looking in confusion as well. But I knew it faster than her. Ray knew that if he kept on yelling like a maniac, that that would give Stella pleasure. So instead, he put his acting skills to the test and _laughed_ like a maniac. That was actually pretty clever.

Stella seemed to know what was going on and went up to him. They had a conversation that I wasn't able to hear, and I could see both of them with a shimmer in their eyes. "It's on" was all I heard from Ray.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: Hey! Sorry, it's been too long since I updated this story! But I'm here now, and hopefully you'll love it.**

RAY

Knowing I had the most rebellious/devious girl in a prank war with me was hard to get over. I knew I had to watch my back every second of the day, and knowing she lived in my neighborhood, and had access to my room...that was a scary thought.

I had to come up with a great prank, to win this thing, so that I would be able to sleep in peace without having to set various alarm noises every night to catch Stella in the midst of a prank.

The thought of alarm noises gave me an idea. It was gonna have to take a lot of patience though.

**Later that day...**

Grabbing my backpack, I ran down Stella's stairs, flew out of the front door, locked it, and ran across the street to my house like nothing had happened.

I had set more than a dozen alarm clocks to ring throughout the night, and I had hid them everwhere around her room so Stella couldn't find them. A classy prank, but it would bring a sleepy Stella to school the next day, making her a little more unaware of the things around her- which would be easy for me to prank her. I grinned at myself, and sat on my bed.

**The next day-**

I walked into school with a look of total confidence. I had planned several pranks yesterday, and Stella would be _totally _caught off guard. I, Ray Beech, was about to win the ultimate prank war.

As I headed to my locker, I heard a scream, and before I knew it, I was on the ground. "What the hell...?" I said.

"RAY BEECH! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!"

Stella was on top of me, attacking me. That sure caught me off guard, because I didn't even defend myself. "GET OFF ME!" I yelled.

"Say I!"

"...I?"

"Now say lose!"

"Lose!" Crap.

"Ha!" Stella slowly got off my back and stood up.

She grabbed a bullhorn (where the hell did that come from) and yelled loud and clear, "RAY BEECH HAS LOST MY PRANK WAR! THAT'S RIGHT FOLKS! NOW HE HAS TO DRINK _THREE _GALLONS OF MEL'S ORGANIC LEMONADE!" The crowd cheered and laughed as I, being hurt and all, groaned and continued to lie down on the floor... It was going to be the worst, year, ever.

**AN: Sorry it's awful quick. :( Please review, and thank you to all of the people who have showed me they will continue to read this story! :)**


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: Again, I'm sorry I haven't been updating continually, but I feel like nobody is liking this story. :( So please review and favorite if you want more! Oh, and read this chapter slowly, because it's hard to make sense of it. :/**

RAY

Lunch that day was disastrous. Stella made me sit next to her as she watched me chug _THREE STUPID GALLONS _of Mel's Lemonade.

The worst part about it: I forgot how much I loved Lemonade.

I couldn't believe it when I realized I hadn't had lemonade in at least two years since Lemonade Mouth was born! It wasn't that difficult to not drink lemonade, because all I had to do was think about how Stella knew she was better than me. I never tell anybody anything, but I had to admit that I always thought I was better than everybody else- Stella coming into town couldn't let anybody think that I thought differently.

As Stella (and pretty much the rest of the school) watched me finish off the rest of the second gallon, I realized that this was ruining my whole point of view of things now.

All I could think about was how I was so full of myself, and even if I knew I wasn't, I sure did act like it. And maybe, I dunno, people like other people that aren't full of themselves? It was hard to imagine anyone who would like me- because, I'm me. Maybe I needed to change. Maybe being who I am was getting me nowhere.

But my weird (kind of disturbingly nice) thoughts went away when I realized I couldn't feel my tastebuds. But I didn't stop drinking, because I couldn't let the whole school see me fail this consequence. I had half of the gallon left and I was starting to get tears in my eyes because of the sourness. I was starting to _really_ hate lemonade.

Keeping my eyes on Stella, I kept drinking. Stella stared at me in amazement as I pretended to hate her with all of my guts. My eyes glared at her, but I honestly just had to go to the bathroom.

Three quarters into the gallon, I realized how much I _didn't _hate Stella. Even though she completely ruined my high school popularity level and stole all of my shows, she helped me find myself again. I knew I was full of myself when I lost at the second try to Rising Star last year and had a _complete _ temper tantrum on stage. Seeing that on tv (because my mom thought it was a good idea to record the show), made me feel disgusted about myself. But I would never admit it out loud.

I finished the last drop of the lemonade and slammed the empty gallon on the table. My ears roared at the sound of LOUD cheering and clapping. I didn't even realize that after twenty minutes of chugging lemonade, the only thing I could hear were my own thoughts. But I smiled slightly and looked at Stella as if to say, _are you happy?_ as she laughed and jumped for joy. Literally.

I left with a lot of slaps on the shoulder and compliments on my ability to drink a large quantity of liquid in a short amount of time. I was headed to the bathroom (because I was about to pee my pants) when Stella stopped me short.

"Honestly Beech, I didn't think you would even touch the lemonade."

I smirked and said, "Well maybe I wanted to drink it."

Her eyebrows rose. "You wanted to drink the lemonade?"

I discreetly rolled my eyes and walked into the bathroom, leaving a confused Stella behind.


	6. Chapter 6

STELLA

Sitting on my sidewalk, I waited for Ray to get home. It was weird to think that Ray probably liked my band, or possibly someone in the band. Why else would he drink three gallons of lemonade? Ray was too stubborn to do something that went against his thoughts on us. We were enemies, right?

I needed to talk to him very soon. But his car never showed up, instead, half an hour after he was supposed to come home, he was walking quickly to his house.

"Hey Ray! Where's your black steed?!"

He stopped and turned around. "You mean the one you poisoned with fish air? It's airing out in the school parking lot. I disposed of the fish." He said the last part very mischieviously. I wondered if it had anything to do with my property. But that wasn't important right now.

Ray walked over to me after setting down his backpack in his yard and stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Why did you drink all that lemonade? Don't you live to do the complete opposite? You hate us!"

Ray shook his head and smirked. I could tell he was considering telling me something, but he decided against it. "Come on Ray. TELLLLLL MEEEEE!"

"I don't hate you Stella!...I don't hate any of you..." He mumbled.

That took me by surprise. "So then why are we wasting our time pretending to hate each other?"

"Wait. You don't hate me? And who said we were wasting our time?"

That got make me angry. It seemed to startle Ray too because he immediately looked guilty, but quickly covered it with an innocent look. That's what his problem was! He didn't hate us!

I was too busy thinking to realize that Ray had walked away. All I heard was a slam of his front door. But I noticed something in the corner of my eye. His backpack. I knew it was on _his _yard, so I probably shouldn't touch it, but technically it was on my property too. I mean, we both lived on this street, and his yard was on this street. So of course, I ran to his yard, picked up his bag and ran to my house without anyone seeing me.

Looking through someone else's backpack was weird. The strangest thing of all was that Ray's bag was completely organized. I didn't see any pieces of paper out of place. I didn't see any candy wrappers (which I had in my bag) and I didn't see any crumpled up pieces of homework (which I also had). There weren't any notes from friends, or any old invitations to parties. Just tons and tons of school work. I noticed his grades were either an A or a 100 on all of his papers, which gave me a little insecurity inside, so I pushed that feeling away and stopped searching.

After realizing Ray had no friends, I wrote a note and put it in his math folder- the first class of the day.

_Sit with me and the band at lunch today if you want. And I also wanted to talk to you. -Stella_

Checking to make sure everything was back where it was (I have ever been this conscious about cleanliness before) I zipped his bag and put it back on his yard. Hopefully, Ray would come and sit with us tomorrow, and the band wouldn't be too weird about it.

**AN: Sorry all of my chapters are really short. I should really fix that... PLEASE REVIEW AND FAVORITE! :)**


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: Hello all! Please review, favorite, follow and PM me, because I like people. :)**

STELLA

The band sat at the usual table, smiling and laughing at something stupid that Charlie said. It seemed to be a normal lunch day, but there was a hint of curiosity in everyone's thoughts as to what was going to happen to Ray.

As if on cue, Ray quietly walked into the cafeteria (unnoticed...except by me) and quickly sat next to me with a brown bag in his hands. He set it on the table, which immediately silenced the band. We watched him as he took out a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, a bags of potato chips, one of the last twinkies on earth and a can of Mel's Lemonade. What was curious was that he didn't say a word as he...passed all of his food to us.

We all looked at it in wonder as he finally spoke.

"I can't feel my tastebuds. The doctor said drinking that much of an acidic drink can do that to you. I probably won't be able to taste for a while."

We all burst out laughing. Maybe it was funny, maybe it wasn't, but seeing Ray's pitiful face just set us off.

He rolled his eyes and walked away, getting us to calm down.

"Ray wait!" I said as I ran after him. It took me a while to find him, because he had walked out so unusually fast. It dawned on me that Ray seemed to be pretty sensitive this year. That probably had to do with his life practically getting destroyed...maybe.

I found him at his locker, which was so far away from mine. My eyebrows went up in concern as I said, "Are you okay? You seem kinda bummed."

He nodded, but I knew he was lying.

"Come on. I need to show you something."

"Now? We're in school..."

"We aren't leaving school." Ray looked at me in confusion as my mischievious face became bigger.

I grabbed his arm and dragged him along with me, until we got to a janitor's closet. "This is just the janitor's..."

RAY

Stella unlocked the door to reveal some cleaning supplies and mops, but the most obvious thing there was another door. Before I could say another word, Stella opened the next door and pulled me along quickly, as I stared in wonder. The door had lead me to **(AN: I was tempted to put Narnia here ;) **a small garden, surrounded by walls of the school.

I wondered how long it had been here when Stella said, "This place is kinda secret. Only a few people around here know about this place. The janitors, me, maybe a few other student in the gardening club, and NOT Principal Brenigan or any teachers. I guess nobody wants to spoil the secret."

It was hard to imagine the top dog of this place not even knowing that a _garden _existed in our school. There was even a small bench to sit on, but it was occupied by a few birds.

"How long's it been here?"

Stella shrugged. "All I know is that the janitors keep the closet locked at all times. I like to go here to think, you know? Or to get my mind off things."

I looked at her. "Things like what?"

"You know, band stuff...and everyone in my family hating my guts..."

I couldn't exactly relate to the band stuff, and my family was the best, but I did know what she meant. I nodded my head. "Yeah, I know how you feel. The whole school hates me now that they realize I'm a joke."

"You are not a joke Ray! They just don't understand you. Like my family doesn't understand me. You just gotta, not care what anyone thinks. And who cares about being popular! It just matters that you have friends who love you."

"Well ditto about your family Stella."

She sighed and said, "It's not the same. But whatever I don't wanna talk about them."

We didn't say anything for a while. We just listened to the wind and watched the birds mess with the squirrels in the tree. It was peaceful, I realized. Stella knew what she was talking about. For the first time ever, my mind was completely filled with nothingness as I stared at the garden.

I could feel Stella'e eyes on me. She was watching me...staring at me. She finally spoke up. "You know you're really cool Ray."

I turned and grinned at her. "You are too Stella."


End file.
